Synchealth saves startup employees from burnout

Are you an overworked and sleepless employee at a startup? Has your mental health suffered from hours of being hunched over your computer, late nights, and urgent deadlines? Startup culture can be excruciating and overwhelming, but with SyncHealth it doesn’t have to be.

This week I interviewed the SyncHealth team: Alexis Trevizo (Tandon ‘18), Param Kulkarn, and Joey Corigliano (NYU Law) to learn more about the startup for startups.

Introduce yourselves.

Alexis: I am a healthcare design and human-computer interaction professional.

Param: I am an ex-postdoc from the NYU School of Medicine with a research background in machine learning and healthcare.

Joey: I am a law student and am passionate about addressing mental health issues in the workplace.

How did you all meet?

Alexis: Param and I met at the 2018 NYU Healthcare Makerthon. We met Joey at an NYU startup networking event.

Who is SyncHealth? What do you do?

Alexis: Synchealth is a service for tech startup which have 50+ full-time employees who suffer from low team productivity and high churn caused by work-related behavioral issues. We provide low-barrier access to behavioral health coaches who understand startup culture.

How did the idea for SyncHealth come about?

Alexis: The idea for Synchealth was born out of a pivot from our previous project - on artificial intelligence powered intake form for medical patients. We realized we were creating a function, not a product. With SyncHealth we found a gap in mental health services for startup employees.

How did you come up with the name?

Alexis: we believe that being synchronized with yourself and your mental health is important. Given all of the stress we face in our daily interactions, it is easy to get out of sync. Sometimes you just need to take a moment to realign or sync up with yourself.

What are the biggest problems with US healthcare today?

Param: Access. People are not receiving the appropriate care they need.

What is the trickiest part of your business?

Alexis: The trickiest part of our business has been going into a maturing market full of competitors. Another problem is that mental health isn’t regarded as a priority in the way that physical health is.

Talk about your audience.

Our focus is the growing workforce of series A startups. People at these startups tend to work under an incredible amount of pressure which often leads to stressors that take a toll on mental wellbeing.

Talk about a challenge you have recently overcome and how you did so.

Param: For a health tech company, everyday is challenging. It has been especially challenging to tackle the complexity of healthcare’s many stakeholders and regulations. So far, we have been overcoming the challenges by approaching them one at a time in a calm manner. Otherwise, we would be too overwhelmed to push our vision forward.

Who have been some mentors to you in your journey? What do you look for in a mentor?

Alexis: One mentor that comes to mind is Jo, the CEO of Trusty.care. Jo is someone who has been in our position, having started a health company, and understands how difficult the market can be. More importantly he has helped us become more creative in our approach.

What are your Summer Launchpad highlights?

Alexis: The best part has been the amazing mentors who have been so helpful. It’s been great bouncing ideas back and forth as well as forming awesome relationships.

I asked them to describe each other in one word. Param wass described as driven, Joey as sharp, and Alexis as curious.

The Synchealth team has big things coming up. Look out for them in the Cornell-Tech Startup Runway program this fall!

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Tracing its roots to the launch of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund in 2010, the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute leads a university-wide initiative to accelerate the pace of technology commercialization and the launch of successful startups founded by NYU's 60,000 students, faculty and researchers.